It is absolutely absurd Amazon is holding your cash until delivery
Essentially this policy is allowing amazon to hold onto cash and earn interest on your money while the parcel is out of your hands and in the hands of shippers..... explain to me what happens when, and this happens often to us, a high value item requires a signature, but the customer wont pick up their phone, has amazon communications turned off, and they are not home...Amazon will hold onto your sale cash for weeks potentially.. Now if you ship a lot, that means thousands of dollars from the sale of goods, which you may need to purchase inventory, pay for ads etc, are in Amazon's hands.
The holding of funds for potential returns, we get that, but this policy seems to only hurt those sellers with less liquidity and actually are running a small business which cannot wait for days or weeks for funds to settle.
Amazon's share price is 225$ a share, the company is worth 3 trillion, and yet operates like a tinker toy set.... Merry Christmas.
It is absolutely absurd Amazon is holding your cash until delivery
Essentially this policy is allowing amazon to hold onto cash and earn interest on your money while the parcel is out of your hands and in the hands of shippers..... explain to me what happens when, and this happens often to us, a high value item requires a signature, but the customer wont pick up their phone, has amazon communications turned off, and they are not home...Amazon will hold onto your sale cash for weeks potentially.. Now if you ship a lot, that means thousands of dollars from the sale of goods, which you may need to purchase inventory, pay for ads etc, are in Amazon's hands.
The holding of funds for potential returns, we get that, but this policy seems to only hurt those sellers with less liquidity and actually are running a small business which cannot wait for days or weeks for funds to settle.
Amazon's share price is 225$ a share, the company is worth 3 trillion, and yet operates like a tinker toy set.... Merry Christmas.
0 replies
Seller_guCaS93YGnu0t
Amazon is not inept. They are doing this on purpose. We just noticed the same issue because (fortunately) we sell mostly on other platforms. But it hurts a lot to do all of the work, take all of the risk and Amazon can play games with your money. Now they can play games for weeks longer.
Micah_Amazon
Hello @Seller_KcEtz9Bkb8qhY,
Thank you for your post. My apologies on the frustration. It is a normal part of selling on Amazon to see funds in the Account level reserve section of the Statement View tab on your Payments report. It’s the amount of money that is reserved to ensure that you have enough funds to fulfill any financial obligations, such as refunds, claims, or chargebacks.
This is to protect sellers to make sure there is enough cash to issue refunds and other items. Thus not having Amazon fit the bill if the seller does not have enough cash flow to reimburse or cover expenses.
Cheers,
Micah
Seller_HP0CuTSNvJvu9
Give Amazon Business a try. I've had invoiced orders go out 180 days without payment. In fact my current oldest is $695 order 72 days out and is expected to pay out 12/31, though who knows if that will happen. Amazon is sitting on $24,624.55 in deferred transactions that don't even count toward the reserve. I promise you the numbers have been MUCH higher (10x higher in fact.) Granted, the assumption here is that Amazon themselves have not yet been paid, but honestly that should be a them problem anyway not a me problem. I'm not the one extending credit to these people. I can't check their references.
Seller_HRcJa1gdGHeov
Come on, even you can not believe that. Amazon has enough liquidity to cover returns from normal 3P selling; as Lon as return rates are in line, there is no need for holding funds (return rates are readily available to Amazon).
We all know Amazon holds the funds to make $$ off the interest; it is not illegal for them to do this but I would say somewhat unethical.
Seller_HRcJa1gdGHeov
@Micah_Amazon
Amazon's gross revenue for 2024 is about $620 billion; about 60% of that comes from 3P sellers, leaving $372 Billion. If Amazon were to hold 10% of that (and they are holding more based upon what I have seen), that leaves $37 Billion; if we assume Amazon's borrowing costs are 8% (probably very low); that mean they would make almost $3 Billion every year of the practice of holding 3P sellers $$ (account live reserves and deferred payments). Not illegal but This looks like a cash grab to me.
If Amazon need to hold $$ to cover returns, they should hold no more than a Seller's historical return rate; even that is not necessary since future 3P sales would cover past returns.
